noelbynature started this blog as a Singaporean student on a tight budget hoping to chronicle his overseas culinary experience while getting away with the finer things in life. Then it expanded to a circle of Singaporean and Malaysian friends who were studying in Melbourne, Australia. Now, we've grown to be a community of international students living abroad. These are our recipes and we hope you like them.
We still would rather not eat indomee every day.

contributorsonnabudget

Friday, July 18, 2008

Lalah is a kind of local shellfish. It doesn't appear every day, so when the day it appeared in the supermarket I picked up a small serving for a song (like, all of 50 cents). The idea is to use the sauce to steam the mussels before integrating the shellfish, sauce and pasta together. My pot was large enough to prepare the sauce in it, then place a stand and a shallow dish inside to steam the lalah with it. If you don't have a large enough pot, you can consider emptying the sauce into a microwave steamer and steaming the lalah there.

1. Cook pasta to al dente and toss lightly with olive oil. Set aside.2. Over low heat, sweat the leek and garlic with a little salt until wilted.3. Add tomatoes, tomato paste and white wine and stir for a minute before adding the water.4. Use the sauce as the base liquid to steam the lalah for three minutes.5. Deshell mussels, and return to the pot with the pasta. Mix well and serve.

* Be sure to wash your lalah thoroughly! They are real dirt collectors.

Total cost: RM 1.40++Breakdown:Lalah - 50 centsLeek - 50 centsTomato - 40 cents(The rest are stuff you should always have around in the kitchen anyway)